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PUA: One of the reasons humanity might bring itself to extinction

For those of you not familiar with the PUA – Pick Up Artists – industry, I will enlighten you a little. Granted, I am not an expert, but I know enough to warn you of the basics.

Pick-Up-Artistry is essentially a dating advice industry. It targets adult men who are “love-shy”, or have trouble attracting/picking up women by teaching them certain techniques. From what I have read on the internet, it became mainstream in popular culture with Neil Strauss’s book “The Game” (I haven’t read it.) Before I list a couple of the techniques, I will first summarize my impression of the general worldview of a PUA coach, or just any guy who buys PUA material.

How a Pick Up Artist Thinks:

According to Pick Up Artists, girls aren’t people, but a mysterious species you can get to have sex with you via manipulation tactics and mind games. These tactics best work in public places, especially shady places like bars and clubs. Beautiful girls are especially easy to influence. Also, beautiful girls don’t care about appearances, so don’t worry about your looks. Just dress to impress and use choice phrases. Whether or not she ACTUALLY likes you AS A PERSON is irrelevant.

The Techniques:

1.) “Negging” – short for “negative hit” – The “trick” is to give the targeted girl a backhanded compliment. “I like your blonde hair – is it natural?” “You’re really tall for a girl, but you could be a supermodel!” The point of this to lower a girl’s self-esteem enough to want to win approval from him, and thus causes her to become hooked on to him. This is because – according to PUA – a girl spends all of her time thinking about how she looks. Most probably because she has been waiting for this very moment to get picked up by a PUA. Especially pretty girls. Pretty girls already have it too easy and get fawned over all the time. She already thinks very highly of herself. Remember, she is a Beautiful Girl, and not a real human being with other characteristics and real-life-person feelings. Regardless of whether or not she likes you, you want to get her into bed. So the PUA will bring her “down to his level” before trying to bed her.

This technique has been criticized by other people as flawed because it might hurt the girl’s feelings. However, even these critics miss the main point. The problem with this technique isn’t that it might not work. The problem is that it is a 100% douche-y thing to do. If you insult someone, I don’t judge the target of the insult…I judge YOU. As a douchebag.

2. “Peacocking” – So this technique is just kind of silly. It instructs the guy to wear something quirky/ridiculous that makes him stand out. (See picture above.) The intention of this is straightforward – it will attract attention and increase the likelihood of curious people coming to talk to him. There is a chance some of these people might be Beautiful Girls.

3. Cold approaches – This is actually common to a lot of dating methods, but PUA encourages approachers to be persistent, even if the girl seems stand-offish or isn’t reciprocating enough at first. According to PUA coaches, PUA tactics work to get a girl to do something she ‘already wants to do.’

So there you have it – a short introduction into the world of PUA. PUA is also characterized by a bunch of acronyms, some of them being (I got these definitions from a PUA forum haha):

AFC – Average Frustrated Chump – “a stereotypical nice guy who has no pickup skills or understanding of what attracts women; a man who tends to engage in supplicative and wimpy patterns of behavior around women he has not yet slept with. [Origin: Ross Jeffries.]”

Incel – (okay this isn’t really an acronym) stands for “Involuntary Celibacy” – a guy who is sexless against his will.

ASD – Anti-Slut Defense – “the maneuvers some women make to avoid taking responsibility for initiating or agreeing to sex; or in order to avoid appearing slutty to the man she is with, to her friends, to society, or to herself. This can occur before or after sex, or it can prevent sex from occurring. Origin: Yaritai.”

AMOG – “alpha male of the group or alpha male other guy – a socially comfortable male who competes with a pickup artist for a woman or interferes with a pickup artist’s game.”

BF Destroyer – this one is pretty self-explanatory – ” a pattern, routine, or line a
pickup artist uses with the intention of seducing a woman who has a boyfriend.”

Seriously, WTF, guys. There is nothing seductive about the seduction community.

From what I understand, these tactics will work on anyone who is already looking for male attention or looking for a hook-up. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think there is anything wrong with this or with general dating advice. However, the whole mindset behind PUA is very sleazy. (Whatever happened to just striking up a conversation?) Something else worth mentioning is that PUA instructors usually imply to their clients/’instructees that since they have not thus far been good enough to get girls, they are not good enough now – hence the theatrics and scripted openers. The instructors also rely on keeping their clients at their sub-par “level”, which is why the function of negging is to bring a beautiful girl down to the guy’s “level” (because, you know, everything in life is about looks and shagging.)

So girls, I hope I have done something today to contribute to your education. Good luck with any future sleazeballs in fur hats that come your way.